N00527:52
Warnings from the dead. Or Solemn admonitions unto all people
Warnings from the dead. Or Solemn admonitions unto all people; but especially unto young persons to beware of such evils as would bring them to the dead. / By Cotton Mather. ; In two discourses, occasioned by a sentence of death, executed on some unhappy malefactors. ; Together with the last confession, made by a young woman, who dyed on June 8. 1693. One of these malefactors.
printed by Bartholomew Green for Samuel Phillips, 1693
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
These Directions are useful unto all the Mad Sinners here. But I must Press them, with a very Particular Inculcation upon You, the condemned Persons, whose Madness has been so fatal to you, that for it you now see your selves apace Going to the Dead Poor Creatures, You must confess, That if you had not been Mad, you had never come to stand under a Sentence of Death in Irons here. Tis because you have been Mad, that you are now clapped in Chains, as Mad men use to be; for this tis, that you are come to Sit in the Shadow of Death, being bound in Affliction and Iron. Some of you have professed, That you would rather go to the Death which you are sentenced unto, then return to such a Life as ⟨p. 30⟩you have Led heretofore. God grant there may be Sincerity in that Profession! I am sure, There can be no. Sincerity, if you either Affirm what you know to be False, or Deny what you know to be True, as too many if you do. Tis notorious, That you have gone a stray in the Greatness of your Folly; and that you are come to own it, is a Sign that your Madness is beginning to Decline. We are now concerned, that you may not Go down to the Congregation of the Dead, before your Madness be, Sufficiently rooted out of your Souls.
These Directions are useful unto all the Mad Sinners here. But I must Press them, with a very Particular Inculcation upon You, the condemned Persons, whose Madness has been so fatal to you, that for it you now see your selves apace Going to the Dead Poor Creatures, You must confess, That if you had not been Mad, you had never come to stand under a Sentence of Death in Irons here. Tis because you have been Mad, that you are now clap't in Chains, as Mad men use to be; for this tis, that you are come to Sit in the Shadow of Death, being bound in Affliction and Iron. Some of you have professed, That you would rather go to the Death which you are sentenced unto, then return to such a Life as ⟨p. 30⟩you have Led heretofore. God grant there may be Sincerity in that Profession! I am sure, There can be no. Sincerity, if you either Affirm what you know to be False, or Deny what you know to be True, as too many if you do. Tis notorious, That you have gone a stray in the Greatness of your Folly; and that you are come to own it, is a Sign that your Madness is beginning to Decline. We are now concerned, that you may not Go down to the Congregation of the Dead, before your Madness be, Sufficiently rooted out of your Souls.